


Perceptions

by Merfilly



Series: Quintesson Verse [1]
Category: Transformers
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perceptor gives the first view of a familiar but long-gone world</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perceptions

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work in a series that fuses the Shattered Glass and G1 personalities in the recognized characters. The setting is the build up to the overthrow of Quintesson rule, using the characters we know from later eras of both the usual and the mirror universe.

None of the superior race would deign to notice the servants they had created, at least not openly. At best, the robotic creatures, by far superior to the organic fused first experiment, might be noted as needing repair or deactivation for failure to keep efficiency. At least, that was how it was in theory.

Many Quintessons delighted in private experiments upon the various classes of their creation. Whether it was pitting the military builds against each other in a grand test of capability, or more...private experiments into the nature of independent thought and expression that some of the servants showed, the Quintessons found the pursuit of knowledge to be entertainment all its own, in the earliest days of the creatures' occupancy of the planet Cybertron.

For one class, those who were created to help the scientists, cold dispassion was the rule of thumb. Perceptor worked in the laboratory of one Quintesson who kept individual examples of multiple classes strictly for the purpose of stimulation experimentation. It was Perceptor who was required to record and document the responses of the various classes, as his owner tried to induce free will and emotional expression in newly created mechs, so that they might better understand the spontaneous bursts in older, more experienced mechs, and possibly learn how to better eliminate it.

Perceptor had studied emotion in all its many guises as he performed his task. He knew what each of his masters saw as 'useful', such as the emotional need to please them. He also knew which emotions were allowable under certain auspices, such as rage in a militant build for the arena. And then there were emotions that served no purpose, such as despair.... unless the hapless mech was in the grasp of one of the more...brutal Quintessons.

Perceptor knew all the range now, he was certain. Yet the only outward sign he ever gave was that of reasoning, dispassionate logic. His master had held him up as a prime example of what all the servile classes should be, which meant that Perceptor had succeeded completely in masking his true nature.

This cycle had seen the addition of one of the flight class to the testing ranks. This one, it seemed, had displayed emotion from the first full cycle of awareness, which stymied the best of the Quintessons. Perceptor moved to where he could see the gleaming bright metal of the flier. As this one had displayed rebellious qualities from the beginning, the master had chosen a unique experiment.

A broad courtyard, with nothing in reach to obscure the sense of space nor a roof or even an energy shield to cover it, had been chosen to contain the flier. A set of chains, constructed of the most durable, strongest material Cybertron could offer had been placed in the center, and then welded into place around the flier's wrists and ankles. Denied the ability to take to the sky, but with temptation ever present, the flier was expected to break in time.

Perceptor was not so certain, watching the way the flier studied everything and everyone that came into his sensor range. If anything, when Perceptor looked up into the yellow optics of this flier, documenting the various outward displays of arrogance and defiance, he saw a burning intellect that was matched to a limitless need to undo what had been done to him.

Perceptor would have to be certain that the Champion heard of this one, the next time he sent a coded dispatch out.


End file.
